Tower 23

“Go? I think not. My sons and daughters do not harm Hagrid on my command. But I cannot deny them fresh meat when it wanders so willingly into our midst. Good-bye, friend of Hagrid.” — Aragog from “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” (2002)

Cara Linton made her final check-in with the base as the sun dipped below the jagged horizon, casting a fleeting golden glow across the forested valley. Her voice crackled through the radio with the steadiness of routine, promising silence until the dawn chorus stirred the world anew.

The line went quiet–and with it, the last tether to the bustling humanity below was severed for the night. As twilight surrendered to the encroaching dark, she turned the key in the lock of the sturdy door, sealing herself within its wood and steel embrace.

The air inside was cool–tinged with pine and solitude. Cara prepared a modest supper—rice and beans, steaming faintly in a dented pot, pairing it with a crisp salad plucked from her dwindling stores. And a mug of yesterday’s coffee–reheated on the stuttering flame of her camp stove, washed it all down with a bitter warmth.

The small lamps flickered out one by one under her steady hand, and she cast a lingering gaze across the valley, its three visible flanks swallowed by shadow. Then, with the creak of springs, she climbed into the narrow bed that hugged the wall, surrendering to the night.

In the hollow hour, an hour and a half before the sun’s first whisper, her bladder roused her from a fitful sleep. Groggy, she shuffled to the corner where her makeshift privy stood—a handyman’s bucket crowned with a frayed pool noodle, a contraption her grandmother would have dubbed a thunder mug with a cackle.

She tended to her need in the dimness, the chill of the floor biting at her bare feet. But as she finished, a sound pierced the stillness—a faint, tinny clatter rising from the metal steps beyond the door.

She froze, trousers halfway up her thighs, her breath catching as she strained to pierce the gloom. The tower’s single room offered no secrets; its sparse furnishings stood mute under the shroud of night. She saw nothing but the pressing dark.

With a hush of movement, she crept to the desk at the chamber’s heart and retrieved her radio, its weight a cold comfort in her palm. She knew the base would be unstaffed for another hour at least, but she slipped it into her pocket. Her fingers fumbled in her backpack, coaxing free her mobile phone, its screen a weak glow against the shadows.

The tinny echo came again–sharper now, followed by a dull thump shuddering through the flat roof above her. She stood rooted, fear bubbling up from her gut, sour and thick in her throat.

Then came a skittering—like a half-dozen feet scampering in a frantic dance across the rooftop. Cara’s pulse roared in her ears, drowning all but the brief pause in the cacophony.

Her wristwatch lay abandoned on the low table that doubled as a nightstand and dining table. She edged toward it, each step deliberate, her hand outstretched.

But as her fingers brushed the cool metal, a flicker of movement snagged her gaze. She looked up, and there, pressed against the glass beyond the catwalk, was a face—ghastly white, hollow-eyed, staring.

A scream tore from her, raw and unbidden, and the face vanished as if it had never been. The tower trembled with the sound of retreat—feet pounding atop, then racing round the catwalk in a frenzied circuit. Cara stood, chest heaving, as the first rays of dawn crept over the treetops behind her.

The radio crackled to life, a burst of static that jolted her anew.

“Tower 23, Red Mountain Lookout,” a man’s voice intoned, steady and familiar.

“Two-three, here,” she managed, her voice a thread.

“You alright, Cara?” he pressed.

“I am, but I can’t see outside,” she replied, her eyes darting to the windows.

“Say again?”

“I cannot see out of any of the windows,” she said, louder now. “There’s a white film covering everything.”

Her thoughts leaped to the door. She grasped the handle and pushed, but it held fast, the outward swing thwarted by the same clinging shroud.

“I can’t get out of the shack either,” she added. “Whatever this stuff is, it’s not letting me open the door.”

“Roger,” came a second voice, clipped and decisive. “We’ll have a unit already on the way up to you. Sit tight.”

She offered no reply. Her eyes flicked to the escape hatch overhead, a square of salvation in the ceiling.

It yawned open without a sound, and before she could scream again, something—something swift and unseen—seized her.

In an instant, Cara Linton was gone, snatched into the pale unknown, leaving the tower to stand silent under the rising sun.